PŪRe Delicious: Turkey Chili
Turkey Chili
I make turkey chili almost the same way I make beef chili, and again, I don’t measure anything so I’m going to do my best to put measurements in as a guide. The one thing about chili is you can add extra tomatoes if you want it to go further or you can triple a recipe to eat or freeze, depending how many folks you are feeding. I do differentiate my beans and spices a bit for turkey versus beef and I also substitute ground chicken the same as I would turkey. I always have a batch of this in the freezer. If you don’t have a lot of spice just cook up the ground beef and its ingredients and freeze it without the tomatoes, way less space in the freezer but pretty much ready to go when you want it!
Ingredients:
1lb of ground turkey/chicken
1 regular sized onion
½ can of white kidney beans or white navy beans (something white to make it more colourful, chickpeas work too!)
Multiple coloured peppers (up to you how pepper heavy you want it, but I like colour, so I tend to use yellow and orange peppers, sweeter than green)
Fresh parsley, chili, minced garlic, cayenne pepper, paprika, dried oregano (now I don’t give measurements because some people like chili spicier than others and if you’ve ever made chili, you probably know what you prefer. If you like spicy load up on the chili and cayenne peppers!)
1 ½ to 2 cans of tomatoes. Again, this depends on how far you want it to go. And what kind of tomatoes you like. I like diced tomatoes with a bit of crushed. So here, I would add one can of diced and start with a half tin of crushed. And decide if I need more crushed. If you are in a hurry to serve it up, I might consider adding a very small tin of tomato paste to thicken it up otherwise if you have time to simmer for a while, skip the tomato paste.
Directions:
Drizzle the olive oil in a pot or large pan with a lid. Fry up the onions until they are slightly clear. I usually cook on medium heat.
Toss in the ground turkey and just before it’s fully cooked, add your spices to they get nice and mixed in. I add the peppers, sliced medium or however you like them, around the same time. Simmer that on low while the turkey finishes cooking and it all melds together.
You can either cool it here and freeze it (without the tomatoes). Or add the tomatoes, bring to a soft boil, and let it simmer for a few hours. Keep a lid on it for the first hour at least so you don’t lose all the fluid/water from the tomatoes. Then, take it off for the 2nd half so it thickens up.
Although it’s great the first night it’s always better the second!
We usually add pumpernickel or rye toast on the side. Mmmm…good!